


Sleight of Hand

by flurrybird



Series: Videogame OCs [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: A New Start, Dysfunctional Family, Finding One's Worth, Gen, Mentor/Protégé, Narzulbur, Orc Stronghold, Pun In Title, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 20:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10395351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flurrybird/pseuds/flurrybird
Summary: Ursa's origin story.





	

She was born small, of a small mother. She came into the world as any other Orckind, bloody and screaming at the unfairness of it all - thrust unwillingly into a world of sudden light, cold, and sound. They did not give her back to her mother, for there was no longer a mother there to give her to. The Chief had not stayed after bringing his mate into the stronghold, so there were no witnesses.

The younger of the two women pressed her hand over the newborn’s mouth and nose to silence her, but the other forced her hand away. “No, it isn’t needed! How could a newborn child threaten your brother, hm? The woman is dead. That is enough.”

There was a small argument, but in the end, they rinsed the baby with warmed water and swaddled her in bearskin. When the chief returned, he held her with only a blank emptiness in his eyes, then retired early.

They decided between themselves, through hushed nighttime conversations on the wall of the stronghold. There were 5 members in the clan. The Chief was incompetent, and his daughter and son were too inexperienced to raise a child. That left the two of them, the ones truly holding the stronghold together. The Chief’s sister, Yatul, would teach Ursaburakh to be strong with axe and arrow. Her grandmother, Bolar, would guide her in the arts of the mind and hand. They would raise her, as they had raised Mauhulakh’s other daughter and son. And they would not be soft, despite her size. She was to grow strong for the clan, and if she died before then, it would only be the way of things.

\-----

Ursaburakh grew, but slowly, and stayed small. Her stepsister, Urog, had reached the proper height of a healthy Orc at 17 years, but she remained at least a foot shorter than she should have been by 9. Her fangs barely showed above her lower lip. This was especially strange, for the Chief’s fangs were impressive and reached up to the level of his nose, tipped with fierce iron bondings that his sister had forged for him when he had come of age. Urog and her brother, Dushnamub, gossiped that Ursaburakh’s mother must have had Manblood in her line. Ursaburakh heard these things, and felt a strange feeling stir in her heart. Her mother had to have been an Orc. Her father would never have mated with a Dirtblood, he just wouldn’t. It was unthinkable.

She asked her grandmother then, and was looked down upon after a moment. “Your mother was Orckind, but not like us,” said Bolar. “She was pale of skin, and thin of limb. She died when she gave birth to you, because she was weak. But you will not be weak, if we have anything to say about it.” There was a curl in the wise woman’s lip. Ursaburakh fought the urge to shrink into the snow.

\-----  
The combat training began in earnest when Ursaburakh reached her 11th year. Her aunt woke her at a dark hour one morning, forcing her from the warmth of sleep. She looked into the longhouse hearth; the night-fire had burned out, but the coals were still glowing. How early could it be?

“Get dressed. The time has come for your training to begin,” Yatul snipped. Ursaburakh rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tried to ignore the fluttering in her chest. It felt more like apprehension than the excitement that her sister and brother had claimed to feel before their first sessions. She watched her aunt duck under the flap over the doorway, then came to her senses and scrambled to prepare.

Yatul was waiting for her when she stepped out of the dark longhouse and into the cold light of the stars and snow. Ursaburakh brushed her dark hair away from her face and fought back a shiver.

“Come with me,” said her aunt, before she began to walk away. Her strides were confident despite the early hour and the terrible cold. The bow across her back was enormous, and the quiver at her hip bristled with the fletchings of arrows.

“Where are we going?” Ursaburakh called after her.

Yatul pushed open the Southern gate of the wall and turned back expectantly. Her niece quickly came to her side. The woman walked out into the wilderness, leaving the door to her apprentice.

“Yatul? What am I training for?” Ursaburakh grunted, pushing the door back into place with all of her strength.

“We’ll start with the bow. The elk and deer will be waking now.”

\-----

“Out of the way, cub.”

Ursaburakh nearly dropped her book. She drew her legs to her chest and looked up at him with wary eyes. Her half-brother, now almost as broad and bulging as their aging father, walked past with a basket full of iron horseshoes on his shoulder. Warmth followed in his wake, no doubt from the forge. Ursaburakh watched him go to greet Bolar, then let out a breath and stretched out again. The snow was melting into slushy mud by her feet. It would never be truly Spring in this land, but she could feel how close it was becoming.

The young Orc flattened her book in her lap, but snapped out of her thoughts when a harsh voice called her name. She rose reluctantly to her feet and crossed the yard to her aunt, who was standing by the longhouse, dusting off her skirt to prolong the time before having to stand before Yatul.

Her aunt’s expression was stormy. Ursaburakh slowed to a stop in front of her, waiting for her to speak first. Yatul didn’t wait, but immediately seized her apprentice by the arms. Ursaburakh dropped her book, eyes wide and fearful at the unexpected hostility. She tried to pull away when Yatul pushed into her personal space.

“Where is it?” Yatul shook her impatiently. “Hm?!”

Ursaburakh squeaked involuntarily, but soon felt indignant frustration boil up into her throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Stop! Let me g-”

The slap came before she could finish. Yatul’s hand left a searing mark on her cheek and tears welling in her eyes.

“Don’t play games with me. Where did you hide it? Don’t think we don’t know, cub. You’ve been stealing for months, but now you have crossed a line. Where is the necklace? Where have you stashed it? Were you going to sell it, to make coin for more of your books?”

Ursaburakh’s frustration turned into outrage. “Stealing? What- I TOLD you, I don’t KNOW!”

Yatul shoved her away, breathing like an ox, and she stumbled. “That is ENOUGH. Until you return the things you’ve taken, you are to stay in the longhouse.” She stooped and snatched the book from the grass before Ursaburakh could stop her. “And you can kiss your books goodbye. We won’t tolerate this thievery anymore.” The woman gestured to Urog, who had appeared behind Ursaburakh without notice.

“NO. Get off me!” Ursaburakh struggled, but she was too weak. She always had been. “Papa! I didn’t do anything!” she called out, but only saw indifference in the Chief’s eyes. Yatul threw her book to the side, and Ursaburakh tripped as she was pushed into the longhouse.

“Weakling,” muttered her sister, easily knocking her aside when she tried to muscle her way past. Ursaburakh heard her, but didn’t get up from where she’d fallen. She sat on her heels and rubbed her cheek, sniffling. It wasn’t fair. Why did she have to be so small, what was wrong with her? She couldn’t forge anything like her brother, or lift a battleaxe like her sister. She was useless. What could she ever amount to?

\-----

Ursaburakh pushed aside the flap over the doorway, but only just enough to slip through, then let it fall closed again. She stayed in the shadows of the longhouse and then the stronghold wall, creeping close to the ground and moving as quietly as she could. It was her brother’s turn to keep watch, but he had stepped away to make water. Ursaburakh had made the decision quickly. She was physically sick of staring at the walls of the longhouse, but her aunt would not relent. No one believed her when she told them she’d never stolen anything, so she was finally driven to this. She just needed to escape, even for a moment. She would retrieve something to read, then go back to confinement. No one would know.

After checking for any movement, she left the shadow of the storage house and crept into the alchemy alcove, where her grandmother always kept the books and paper. She stretched up to pull down one of her favorites from the wooden shelf, but didn’t get to touch the spine. A shadow moved in the corner of her eye, accompanied by the sound of metal settling in pieces. She didn’t speak, still wary of making any noise, but turned to find the source. There was nothing there, save for a dark lump on the ground, half-hidden behind a woodpile. Ursaburakh looked around again, then carefully moved to investigate.

A hand slapped over her mouth, pinning her lips shut. She scrabbled at it, eyes blown wide, as an arm wrapped around her middle and lifted her off of the ground, pulling her back into the furthest shadows of the alcove. She kicked, but only got a grunt out of the man behind her.

He smelled like sweat and snow, she noted. Ursaburakh stilled with a whimper when his arm tightened around her, painfully crushing her stomach to her spine.

“ _You’re going to listen to me, y’hear?_ ” His voice was thick in her ear with an accent she didn’t know. Ursaburakh nodded and clenched her jaw beneath his hand.

“ _I don’t want to kill you._ ”

Ursaburakh blinked, breathing heavily through her nose.

“ _That would make a mess that I don’t need. Instead, I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to forget you ever saw me. You’ll go back to whatever it is you do and forget that this happened at all. Understand, kid?_ ”

Words escaped her before she could bite them back.

“ _What?_ ”

She growled into his hand, and he took it away. “My name. Is Ursaburakh.”

He quickly shushed her, and she held her breath. Dushnamub settled back into the rickety seat beside the longhouse’s entrance, sealing away any remnant of hope for her.  
Ursaburakh felt suddenly sick. She could feel the thief’s despair behind her too, which gave her inspiration. If this thief could trespass unnoticed in the stronghold for so many months, surely he could teach her how to do the same. He didn’t have a battleaxe with him, and he didn’t smell like a forge. He was like her, so she could reason with him.

“A deal,” she whispered, then strained to make eye contact with the thief at her back. He didn’t reply in the dark, so she continued as quietly as she could. “You teach me… I don’t scream.”

She waited again, one eye on her brother across the camp, who was picking at his nails. “Give me word that you will teach me to be like you, and you can get a head start.” She could feel the power in her veins.

“ _Tomorrow. South road,_ ” said the man, before he unceremoniously shoved her into the muddy snow. Dushnamub shouted from across the camp, and the dark shape of the thief leapt over Ursa’s head. He fled, but only after grabbing his knapsack from behind the woodpile. He was gone before Dushnamub had made it halfway from his seat. The only things remaining were a handful of coins scattered over the ground.

\-----

Two winters passed.

  
Ursaburakh had not grown much physically, but she had become skilled in the arts of the thief. The shadows and their silence became her newest friends, second only to the thief who had saved her that night. His name was Arndur, she found out. He was a Nord, and he preferred to call her Ursa, because her real name was too long to say.

  
Arndur was a good man, who stole for good reasons. He stole from the Orcs to give to his family and pay the Guild of Thieves, and only stole enough for food and clothes; never more. He should have stolen more. Maybe his life would have been worth it, then. He would not have thrown it away for only string and change.

  
It was her aunt that had raised the suspicion that she was seeing someone outside of the stronghold. Yatul had caught Ursa practicing her daggerwork in moves that she’d never received from Yatul or anyone else in the clan. Yatul then took to watching Ursa in the night, so that she would find who could be meeting with the smallest of Orckind. Ursa overheard the conversation on this, and was forced to hide in her bedroll every night, so that no harm would come to her friend and mentor.

  
In the end, it could not be helped. Many nights into her self inflicted imprisonment, Arndur began to worry.

  
\-----

Her father beheaded him at dawn. Drops of blood fell like so many precious rubies into the snow.

But these rubies were worth more than any stone, and could not be replaced.  
\----

Ursa packed her things when night came around again. She crept out of the stronghold, but this time, she would be meeting no one. The Thieves Guild would have the answers she needed, they had to.

She did not cry when she left her first home. She ignored the wooden spikes of the wall, hewn smooth with years of rending and repair. She ignored the familiar shadows and the familiar sounds and slipped out of the stronghold. Let her aunt and grandmother have her father to themselves. She was no longer his daughter, nor their niece nor grandchild. That time was over. As she left bootprints in the snow at the entrance one last time, Ursa turned toward a new life -- one where she would no longer be small.


End file.
